'A storm is coming': One migrant family's bid to reach Europe

With migrants only allowed one backpack each on the smugglers' boats that carry them from Turkey to Greece, Ahmed, his wife Hanin and her family packed a few possessions and sent the rest of their belongings to friends.

Then they waited.

It should have been the defining moment of a journey which began as Syria's conflict escalated, forcing two Palestinian families to flee their homes in the suburbs of the capital Damascus.

Hanin and her family left in 2014, and Ahmed two years later for Turkey where they were introduced in the winter of 2017. Living in different cities, they exchanged text messages for months before Ahmed took a 20-hour bus trip from Izmir - Turkey's third largest city located on the Aegean Sea - to the border town of Kilis to meet her, which led to their engagement.

They were quickly swept up in a flurry of wedding preparations:...